


The Tilt Shift

by Evoxine



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-11
Updated: 2018-11-11
Packaged: 2019-08-22 01:59:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16588595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evoxine/pseuds/Evoxine
Summary: Once inseparable and now practically strangers, Sehun and Jongin get a wake-up call in the form of a battered body.Fill #3 for my Sekai Secret Santa event.





	The Tilt Shift

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MRBRSD94](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MRBRSD94/gifts).



Looking back, Sehun doesn’t really know how or why it all started.

They’d been best friends once, practically inseparable, way back when they were young and naive children. Their houses were and still are, a minute’s bike ride apart, they’ve been schoolmates for almost two decades, and they used to practice together in a cramped dance studio. Yet, ever since the eleventh grade, they’ve stopped heading to school together, stopped coming home together, stopped _being_ together. He loved Jongin, he really did, but he was forced to let him go. Life never really turns out the way you expect it to, Sehun guesses.

Now, whenever he passes Jongin in the hallways of their university buildings, he keeps his eyes trained ahead and pretends that they do not share a history. It’s a relatively easy ruse to keep up – they don’t share any mutual friends, their respective academic profiles do not overlap, and they play completely different sports. They do end up on the same bus home sometimes, and Sehun will get off one stop later just so he doesn’t have to walk down the same street with his ex-best friend. It sounds extreme, but it’s just easier that way.

It’s been five years and Sehun had long since come to terms with the situation. He doesn’t have the desire to fix it – not anymore, especially not when Jongin seems to think the same way.

The thing is, while they do pretend that they’re strangers, Sehun doesn’t actually wish ill on Jongin. So when he walks past a bruised and battered Jongin behind the library building on a Thursday night, he stops and swallows. A part of him just wants to leave, but another part is screaming at him to stay.

Jongin is slumped against the stone wall, chest heaving and head thrown back with a grimace on his face. His eyes are closed – well, one is closed and the other seems too swollen to open – and there’s blood running down the side of his face.

“Are you okay?”

His voice startles Jongin so badly that the man winces, a hand coming up to press against his side.

“Fine.” His voice is pinched and rough, and while they may not have talked for the past five years, Sehun still remembers how Jongin’s a shitty liar.

“You should go get that checked out.”

“I’ll be fine,” Jongin repeats. Judging by the crease between his brows and the whiteness underneath the blood on his knuckles from how his fingers are curled into tight fists, Sehun’s pretty sure he’s saying that for his own benefit. He watches as Jongin pushes off the wall and takes a step – his knees buckle in the next second and Sehun moves on pure instinct, darting forward to catch him around the waist.

Jongin lets out a cry of pain and stumbles into Sehun, the latter managing to support most of his weight.

“You can barely walk,” Sehun says, mindful of Jongin’s ribs as he tries to hoist him upright. He gets an irritated grunt in response, and before he realises what he’s doing, he finds himself lugging Jongin all the way to the bus stop.

“Stop. I can’t go home like this.”

“I know.” Digging into his backpack, Sehun retrieves his bus pass and scrounges up enough change for Jongin’s ride. “I remember how your mother is, so I’m bringing you back to mine. My parents are out of town visiting my brother.”

He doesn’t set Jongin down on the bench, not wanting to cause him any more pain when he has to get up again in order to board the bus. There are a couple of students at the stop and Sehun can feel the intensity of their curious gazes, but he ignores them and focuses on supporting Jongin’s weight.

They don’t talk for the entire duration of the wait.

When the bus comes, Sehun helps Jongin on and deposits him onto a seat before heading back up to pay for their fares. He stumbles a little on his way back with the sway of the bus and stubs his toe on the bottom of Jongin’s seat, the sudden twinge of pain pulling a curse out from between his lips.

“You think that’s bad?” Jongin mutters, teeth grit as he tries not to let the movement of the bus jostle any bruised ribs.

Rolling his eyes, Sehun sits down next to him and pulls out a pack of tissues – his mother always forces him to have one in his bag – and his bottle of water. He soaks the tissues and dabs at the gash above Jongin’s eyebrows in an attempt to clean off some of the blood.

“Son of a –”

“Suck it up,” Sehun hisses, working insistently around the wound. “You’re gonna have to clean it at some point.”

Jongin groans low and exhales, jaw tight as he suffers through the pain.

The pack of tissues run out quickly, but Sehun manages to clean up most of the blood around Jongin’s face. He studies the wound and pulls a face.

“I think that cut might need some stitches.”

“Great, just fucking great.”

 

 

 

  
It’s hard not to notice how Jongin’s looking around the living room, his open eye sharp and raking in all the details. Is he comparing what he remembers to what he sees? Is he thinking about the last time he stepped foot into the house? Does he even remember the last time he was here?

Sehun drops his bag off by the foot of the stairs and ducks into a bathroom to wet a clean hand towel, passing it off to Jongin on his way to the kitchen with the instruction to clean up the rest of his wounds.

He finds the first aid kit perched atop the refrigerator and he grabs a bag of frozen peas for good measure. Jongin’s busy cleaning off the blood on his knuckles when Sehun re-enters the room and their eyes meet for the briefest moment before Sehun clears his throat and asks Jongin to take a seat.

“Hold this against your ribs,” Sehun says, tossing the peas to Jongin. “Judging from how you’re holding yourself, I’m pretty sure they’re bruised.”

Jongin does as he’s told, sitting quietly as Sehun cracks the first aid kit open and unearths the antiseptic.

As Sehun uncaps the bottle, he debates over warning Jongin about the upcoming pain. But he decides that getting it over and done with is better than dragging it on, so with one swift motion, he sprays over all the open wounds, following it with a puff of cool air over them to soothe the sting. He leaves the cut on Jongin’s lip alone – it doesn’t seem too bad, and the guy’s been running his tongue over it anyways.

The bag of peas crinkle loudly, Jongin’s grip on it tightening out of shock and in reaction to the sudden jolt of pain. Apart from a thin layer of Neosporin, there’s not much else Sehun can do about the scraped knuckles, so he moves on to the laceration on Jongin’s head.

“Sorry, but I only have pink thread, for some reason.”

Jongin simply glances over at him and adjusts the position of the makeshift ice pack. Shrugging, Sehun slips on a pair of gloves and sterilises the equipment before he threads the pink fibre through the eye of the needle. It’s not the best way to stitch up a wound, but Sehun highly doubts Jongin will be willing to go to the hospital just for this.

A hiss escapes from between Jongin’s lips when the needle first pierces through the skin, but he holds back any other signs of discomfort as Sehun continues with the stitching.

“So why’d you get into a fight? That’s not like you.”

“You don’t even –” _know me_. Jongin cuts off his sentence in the nick of time, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what he was about to say.

Sehun clenches his jaw and decides, _fuck it, I’ll just patch him up and get him out of here before I regret ever trying to help in the first place._

But Jongin sighs and says, “I got into a fight because some assholes were talking smack about someone I know.”

Pink thread tugs the edges of split skin closer together.

“Must be someone important.”

Unsurprisingly, Jongin falls silent again. Tying off a knot, Sehun snips the end of the thread and sits back on his heels to examine his handiwork.

“Well, looks decent enough. Keep it clean and dry.” He packs the kit away and gets to his feet. “Here, let me get you a fresh ice pack. Your eye looks like it could use one.” Jongin hands the peas over and prods experimentally at his eye.

The second Sehun is back in the living room, he hears, “I fought Luca and his cronies.”

That name seizes Sehun’s attention and he stops a few feet short of Jongin, the chill from the frozen bag of corn cutting right through the flesh of his hands.

“Luca?”

He stares right at Jongin, vaguely aware of how bad the bruise around his eye is getting. Not even makeup will be able to cover that black eye up.

“ _Luca?_ ”

It’s been over three months since they parted ways – not so amicably –, and the name still curdles Sehun’s blood. To say that their short-lived relationship was rough would be an understatement; getting out of it was one of the best things that Sehun has ever done for himself.

Luca has left him alone for the most part, although the days right after their breakup were ripe with obnoxiously rude text messages, sneers, and loud bangs on the front door late in the night. The man is a ticking time bomb and it seems as though he’d exploded in Jongin’s face.

“Do you even know him?’

Jongin holds a hand out, gesturing for the bag of corn. Even with one eye and compromised depth perception, he manages to pluck it out of the air with zero effort.

“No,” he answers simply, slapping it against his face and slumping into the couch in relief. “I was walking by and heard him say some sick shit.”

“... So you punched him?”

Scoffing, Jongin shuts his eye and lets his head flop back. “You have no idea what he said.”

“I dated that guy, so I think I do.”

“No,” Jongin says slowly. “You don’t.”

“So… what, you got into a fight with him and his friends just to defend _my_ honour? Why? We’re not –”

He slams his jaw shut and turns on his heel, making a beeline for the kitchen where he stands over the sink, fingers gripping the edge until his nails hurt. All he had planned for tonight was finishing up his essay on prison reform and maybe playing a few rounds of Fortnite with his buddies when he got home. In no way whatsoever did he ask for _this_.

 

 

 

  
“Eat this.” Dropping a couple of painkillers into Jongin’s palm, Sehun sets a glass of water down on the side table. “If you’re staying here for the night, please call your parents. I doubt they’d know to look here and I don’t want to worry them. You can use the bathroom around the corner if you want to shower or whatever. I’ll get you a change of clothes.”

He’s halfway up the stairs when Jongin’s voice trails after him. “We’re not gonna talk about this?”

“Talk?” Sehun echoes, surprised. The large vase placed in the corner of the landing stares back at him. “Why do we have to? I never asked for you to get into a fight for me, and it’s not as if we’ve been talking for the past five years.”

When he doesn’t get an answer, Sehun continues trudging upstairs. He collects a spare towel and a change of clothes, trying not to think about how they used to share clothes all the time.

He dumps them at one end of the couch and is about to leave when cold fingers encircle his wrist.

“You were my best friend.”

Bitterness surges up like a wave and Sehun tastes it on his tongue.

“Yeah, so were you. Things change, Jongin. As they so clearly did with us.”

“I wasn’t thinking when I took that first swing. All that was going through my head was how he should’ve treated you better, how you deserve better.”

Sehun’s suddenly so incredibly tired.

“You’re one to talk,” he mutters, dragging his free hand down his face. “You were the one that left.”

“I never wanted to. I made a bad decision, but at that time, I thought it was necessary.”

Jongin’s fingers are warming up, thanks to the heat of Sehun’s skin. The beat of Sehun’s heart is steady and Jongin presses just a little harder against the pulse point.

“Necessary? Cutting me out of your life was necessary?” It’s hard to mask the scathingness of his voice, not that he thinks Jongin deserves the effort.

“I cut you out because my feelings for you changed.”

“Then you could’ve just told me you didn’t want to be friends any longer.”

“I didn’t _not_ want to be your friend, Sehun. I wanted to be a lot _more_ than your friend.”

O-kay, this is brand new territory.

“You’re…”

“Yeah. When I realised what my feelings for you really were, I didn’t know how to deal with it. I was immature and freaking out, and it’s a shitty reason, but that’s why I stopped talking to you. By the time I came to terms with it and wanted to patch things up, you'd moved on.”

Jongin sighs, taking the bag of corn off his eye and setting it back against his ribs. There are droplets of condensation running down the side of his face. “I knew I hurt you, so I just figured that it would be better in the long run if I let things be. I never stopped caring about you, you know? So hearing that asshole say all those groundless things about you just because his ego got hurt? I was stressed and tired, and at that moment, I could not let that go.”

The faint beginnings of a headache are sprouting up behind Sehun's eyes.

“I can't even begin to tell you how _stupid_ this is,” Sehun says, struggling to get the words out. All these years spent wondering if he did something wrong only to find out that their friendship ended because Kim Jongin was too scared to face his feelings? If Jongin wasn't already beat to a pulp, Sehun would punch the guy in the face. Three times.

“I know, and I'm sorry. I was scared of losing you and I ended up losing you anyway.” He lets go of Sehun's wrist and stands, gathering up the clothes and towel in his free hand. “I'm just going to take a quick shower and then I'll be out of your hair. My mother should be asleep by the time I'm done.”

 

 

 

  
Sehun's done with his own shower before Jongin is – must be hard moving about with busted ribs. Restless, he paces back and forth in the hallway and bites at his cuticles until they hurt, at which point his patience snaps.

The shower isn't running any longer so Sehun barges into the bathroom, but the words that were poised to leave his mouth somehow slip back down his throat.

“Holy shit,” he breathes. The state of Jongin's ribs are worse than he thought they were – black-purple is smeared all down Jongin's side, even dipping past the edge of the towel around his waist.

“Nothing’s broken,” Jongin says quietly. “Looks worse than it is.”

“You really shouldn't have gotten involved.” There's a tightness in Sehun's chest and he tries his best to ignore it as he grabs a hand towel and ducks into the kitchen for a few ice cubes that he wraps up.

Jongin's sitting on the edge on the tub when he returns. A groan of pain echoes within the small room when Sehun holds the ice against his side.

“As I said, you deserve better.”

“Better,” Sehun echoes. “Like?”

Jongin lifts a half-hearted shoulder, eyes trained on his feet. “Dunno, used to think that I could've treated you the way you deserved to be treated. No longer sure about that.”

“I mean, you're a fucking dumbass for doing what you did, but I know you're a good person. I'm sure you, ah, would've treated me very well.”

Despite the cold compress in his hands, Sehun feels heat wash over him in a slow wave.

“But you don’t need me.”

Sehun glances up sharply. “Excuse me?”

“You did perfectly fine without me. Made new friends, made swim team captain in senior year, got onto the principal’s honour roll. It was harder to stay updated with your life in uni since I have no reason to be involved in any aspect of your life, but I can tell you’re doing well. It’s bittersweet, but it’s –”

“I adapted, Jongin. You walked away and I made do with what I had left. Did I really want to go about my life with a hole in my heart the shape of your stupid face? No. I changed, but that doesn’t mean I don’t need you, that I never needed you. We were best friends since third grade – I grew up with you, and you were the one person who knew me inside and out. How could I not have needed you?

“You’re not the victim here,” he finishes, letting go of the compress.

 

 

 

  
He finds himself in his bedroom, hunched over a textbook that he isn’t paying any attention to. He’d left Jongin downstairs, and for all he knows, the guy could’ve left the second he got dressed. So when his door creaks open, Sehun all but jumps out of his skin. The chair topples over when he springs to his feet, but Jongin holds out a hand and says, “Wait.”

“What?”

“Don’t move. You’re right, I was the one who walked away, I was the one who gave it up, so even though it might be too late, I’ll be the one who comes back. So,” he says lamely as he gestures between them, “this is me coming back to you.”

Sehun stares, bug-eyed, as Jongin crosses the threshold and strides over to him with purposeful – well, as purposeful as he can be, what with the state of his ribs – steps. This is possibly the corniest shit he’s ever experienced, but the sudden happiness bubbling up inside nearly bowls him over.

There are barely a dozen steps between them and Jongin ends up standing right in front of him in a matter of seconds.

“I’ve always needed you.” His fingers are shaky as he reaches out, running the tips gingerly down the bruised mess on Jongin’s side.

“And I, you. You have to know that.”

Sehun stays silent and Jongin tilts his chin up with a finger hooked beneath.

“This doesn’t mean you’re forgiven,” Sehun mumbles, eyeing Jongin’s split lip.

“I know. I don’t expect you to, definitely not right now.”

Asshole always knows just what to say, Sehun thinks, sliding a hand around the curve of Jongin’s jaw. Jongin stands there quietly, perfectly content letting Sehun touch and stare, and he barely flinches when Sehun’s thumb brushes against his bruised eye socket.

He does, however, inhale audibly when Sehun impulsively leans in and kisses him gently on the lips.

“You know, you were the person I wanted to lose my first kiss to,” Sehun confesses.

“I’m sorry.”

“Make up for it, then maybe I’ll accept that apology.”

The brush of Jongin’s hand against the curve of his neck has Sehun’s heart doing double-time. He smells the scent of his own shampoo threaded with Jongin’s own scent when he leans in to meet him halfway, and it completely overwhelms his senses when their lips meet again.

It’s careful and slow, Sehun mindful of Jongin’s injuries while Jongin just wants to let Sehun lead. A whimper lodges itself in Sehun’s throat when Jongin tugs teasingly on his bottom lip, teeth scraping gently over the swell of the flesh. He licks into Jongin’s mouth a little hesitantly but immediately does it again when Jongin hums happily.

“It’s getting late,” Jongin says, words trapped between their lips. “You should sleep.”

“I’m not going to school tomorrow.”

He lets Jongin guide him back towards the bed, stopping when his heels hit the frame.

“Why not?”

“Someone has to stay here and look after you and your battered body, no?”

Jongin drops another kiss on his lips and presses their foreheads together. “I promise I’ll make it up to you, Sehun. You’re one of the most important people in my life and I’ve failed to show you that for so long. You will always be my best friend, no matter what issues we’ve gone through and what we’ll face in the future.”

“We’ll take it one day at a time,” Sehun says, running a hand down Jongin’s arm to where his hand lies waiting. Fingers lace, breaths mingle, and wounds slowly start to heal.

**Author's Note:**

> [Click for Links!](https://bluedveins.wixsite.com/evoxine)


End file.
